In automation technology and in control systems in shipbuilding, a bus subscriber, such as an actuator or sensor, is frequently controlled in a redundant manner. For the redundant control of the bus subscriber, systems with at least two controllers and an automation device are frequently used, wherein the bus subscriber has a communication connection via a bus connection to the automation device and the automation device has a communication connection via communication networks to the controllers.
Document DE 10 2010 015 455 B4 describes an automation device with redundantly designed network interfaces for connection to a fieldbus, wherein the automation device has a fieldbus controller with a single MAC address and a network distributor connected to the fieldbus controller, wherein the network distributor is designed as an Ethernet switch and the automation device is configured to emulate individual MAC addresses for the at least two network interfaces in order to convert the different MAC addresses to the MAC address of the common fieldbus controller, and wherein the network distributor is configured to provide the plurality of network interfaces in each case with individual network addresses depending on the individual MAC addresses.